WTF?! — Tax the Rich, Subsidise the Poor… and Somehow We’re All Broke

🗣️ The Debate Everyone Thinks They’re Winning

Picture it: you’re at the pub, a family dinner, or scrolling social media, and here it comes — that conversation.
Someone, usually with the moral certainty of a saint and the economic training of a Labrador, says:
“We just need to tax the billionaires more! That way we can subsidise housing, healthcare, green energy — and fix the economy!”

The table nods. The thread fills with clapping emojis. It feels good. It feels fair. It’s the economic equivalent of imagining you’ve just solved world hunger by suggesting “we should give everyone free food.”

Here’s the plot twist no one likes: rich people don’t actually pay those taxes — you do. Not directly, but through higher prices, lower wages, and fewer opportunities. The very subsidies meant to help you often end up making things more expensive, because the system doesn’t work like a charity. It works like a business — and the business always gets its cut.

This isn’t about defending billionaires out of some billionaire fan club. It’s about looking at how money actually moves through an economy, and realising that heavy taxation with endless subsidies is like trying to cure a hangover with more tequila.

💸 1. The Pass-Through Scam

When you raise taxes on businesses or wealthy owners, they don’t react by nobly absorbing the hit. They react like… well, businesspeople. Their goal is to protect margins, keep shareholders happy, and ensure the business keeps running without bleeding capital.

So instead of saying, “Oh well, guess I’ll make less money,” they say, “Cool, let’s just add that cost to the price tag, trim payroll, or squeeze suppliers a little harder.”

Here’s how it plays out in the real world:

• Prices go up: Whether it’s your weekly shop, your broadband bill, or your energy costs, the new tax is quietly baked into what you pay.

• Wages stagnate: Pay rises get delayed or reduced because “budgets are tight,” even though the tightness was self-imposed by tax changes.

• Contracts get squeezed: Small businesses that supply big companies get offered worse rates, forcing them to cut corners or staff.

This isn’t theory — it’s basic economics. Costs, no matter where they originate, flow downhill until they land on the end consumer. You can slap “Billionaire Tax” on a bill all you want — when the dust settles, it’s your receipt that’s higher.

And the higher up the chain the tax is applied, the more it multiplies as it passes through each link — wholesalers, distributors, retailers — each one adding their own markup before it reaches you.

The bill always ends up trickling down to the end user — you.

🚗 2. Exhibit A: The Car Industry

If you want a real-world, can’t-miss-it example of the pass-through effect in action, look no further than the car market. Governments pile on:

• VAT

• Import duties

• Environmental surcharges

• Registration fees

• Luxury taxes on certain models

All of that stacks up before the car even leaves the factory lot. By the time it hits the showroom floor, the price of that shiny, efficient electric vehicle is often close to double what it would cost without the tax burden.

And what’s the result of making cleaner cars far more expensive? People pivot:

• They buy older, dirtier cars: Cheaper upfront, but worse for the environment.

• They finance: Which means paying interest to banks, not putting more money into the actual industry producing cleaner cars.

• They delay upgrades entirely: Keeping outdated, less efficient vehicles on the road.

The irony? The so-called “green” taxes, designed to push people toward cleaner options, often keep the dirtiest options in service for longer. It’s a classic case of policy intentions colliding with economic reality — and the reality wins every time.

And it doesn’t stop at cars. The same pattern happens with appliances, home renovations, even tech. When you tax production and sale heavily, you don’t just raise revenue — you create barriers to adoption for the very improvements you claim to want.

Or as the sarcastic version goes: “Nothing says ‘save the planet’ quite like making eco-friendly cars so expensive that everyone keeps driving their smoke-belching 2005 diesel instead.”

🏦 3. Subsidies: The Participation Trophy of Economics

Subsidies are sold as the great equaliser: the government swoops in with financial help to make things “affordable” for those who need it most. On paper, it sounds like a win. In reality, subsidies often act like a price-raising permission slip for sellers.

Here’s how it plays out:

• Sellers inflate prices: If the government is covering part of the cost, why not bump the price? The customer isn’t paying all of it directly, so they’re less sensitive to the increase.

• Bureaucracy eats the budget: By the time the subsidy passes through layers of administration, a chunk of it has vanished into paperwork, salaries, and inefficiencies.

• Dependency sets in: Instead of prices naturally lowering through competition and innovation, industries get comfortable charging more, knowing subsidies will keep demand afloat.

Housing markets are a perfect example. First-time buyer schemes or rent assistance can sound great, but they often push prices higher overall — making the unsubsidised market even less accessible.

The cruel twist? Subsidies can lock people into waiting for help instead of acting now, slowing down adoption of better goods and services. And when subsidies disappear, people discover the “real” price was never affordable in the first place.

It’s like handing out life jackets while drilling holes in the boat — sure, you’re helping people float, but you’re the one sinking the ship in the first place.

🔄 4. The Loop That’s Killing the Economy

On the surface, the tax-and-subsidise loop sounds like a clever balancing act. But in practice, it’s an economic hamster wheel — you keep running, but you’re not going anywhere.

Here’s the current genius plan:

1. Raise taxes at the top.

2. Watch prices rise for everyone.

3. Use the tax revenue to subsidise the people who can’t afford the new prices.

4. Congratulate yourself for “helping” — while the middle class gets squeezed to death.

The problem? Every cycle reinforces itself. Higher taxes lead to higher prices. Higher prices require more subsidies. More subsidies require even more taxes. And round we go, burning energy and resources just to stand still.

Middle earners — the backbone of any stable economy — get hammered from both sides: too “rich” for meaningful subsidies, too “poor” to comfortably absorb the rising costs. They pay more for everything, contribute heavily in taxes, and get little back except the privilege of keeping the system afloat.

We’ve built an economy where the government sets fire to your wallet, then hands you a cup of water — and expects applause for the effort.

🧠 5. The Alternative Nobody Talks About

Most debates on inequality obsess over taking more from the top rather than growing the middle and lifting the bottom. But the reality is, you can’t redistribute your way to prosperity — you have to build it.

Here’s what a smarter model looks like:

• Lower taxes on production and capital so goods and services are cheaper from the start, without needing subsidies to make them “affordable.”

• Let prices drop naturally through competition, scale, and innovation instead of artificially inflating them with tax.

• Treat billionaires like engines, not enemies — reward those who reinvest in jobs, infrastructure, and technology rather than punishing all wealth equally.

• Penalise hoarding and extraction, but protect and even incentivise productive reinvestment that drives long-term growth.

This isn’t a billionaire love letter — it’s an economy love letter. Because when you make it easier and more profitable to build, hire, and innovate, the benefits spread out naturally: more jobs, better pay, and cheaper products for everyone.

We could keep patching leaks with subsidies, or we could just fix the pipes.

Result?
More jobs, cheaper products, faster tech adoption — without needing 14 forms and a government approval stamp to buy a car.

🎯 WTF Bottom Line

This isn’t a billionaire love letter — it’s an economy love letter, aimed at keeping capital flowing, prices fair, and opportunity alive. Taxing wealth without understanding where the bill ends up is like squeezing a balloon: the air doesn’t vanish, it just bulges out somewhere else — usually straight into your cost of living.

You can’t just “tax the rich” in isolation. They’ll always find a way to bill you for it. If you want cheaper goods, better wages, and faster innovation, you have to keep capital flowing — not slam the brakes every time a policy “feels” fair.

Because right now?
We’re running an economy where the poor fund the system, the rich get blamed for it, and the middle class gets squeezed out entirely.

And if that sounds sustainable, I’ve got a diesel-powered “eco car” to sell you.

WTF is that?

Stay tuned for more WTF moments, and if you liked this article, look out for the next one where we explain why printing more money is the quickest way to make everyone richer and prove that raising the minimum wage to £100 an hour will make us all millionaires — because apparently, economics is just Monopoly with better graphics and math is just a feeling.